MIT president calls for “thorough analysis” of school’s involvement with Swartz

Less than 48 hours after Aaron Swartz's tragic suicide, the institution involved in his high-profile JSTOR incident (that eventually lead to federal charges) has issued a statement.

MIT President Rafael Reif e-mailed the members of the university community this morning to address the situation, despite Swartz never having a formal affiliation with the school. Reif emphasized he was compelled to comment not only because of MIT's role in the JSTOR incident, but also because Swartz was beloved by many within the MIT community. The president's tone was clear throughout: "It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy."

In light of such an acknowledgement, Reif appointed professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of the school's involvement, "from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present." Reif asked Abelson to outline options MIT had plus the decisions the institution made, and he promised to share the report with the MIT community once it has been completed.

The moment of infamy came back in 2010, as Swartz logged onto MIT's network to scrape millions of academic papers from JSTOR. Administrators booted his laptop off the Wi-Fi network, but Swartz then entered an MIT network closet and plugged his laptop directly in. From there the feds got involved: Swartz was arrested and charged with multiple counts of computer hacking, wire fraud, and other crimes. The situation still hadn't been resolved as late as fall 2012, when the feds ratcheted up the charges in September. Swartz faced more than 50 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism.

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT's involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron's death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support.

Eeeeh, I gotta call bullshit on this. If Mr. Reif cared all about this, he would have been making noise /before/ this hit the news.

Only coming out with something like this /after/ the fact... well, it's nice! It's nice that he's trying to look like he's taking it seriously. He's not sad that it happened, he's just sad that it happened on his watch, and it made him look bad.

Eeeeh, I gotta call bullshit on this. If Mr. Reif cared all about this, he would have been making noise /before/ this hit the news.

Only coming out with something like this /after/ the fact... well, it's nice! It's nice that he's trying to look like he's taking it seriously. He's not sad that it happened, he's just sad that it happened on his watch, and it made him look bad.

I'm sure there are issues with making public statements if there's an ongoing investigation. It's not like you can say anything before any information has come out.

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

There are several issues I think:- The law seems to allow for extremely long / large punishments for 'white collar' crimes which mainly pertain to the violation of legal concepts such as patents / copyrights where often people are not directly hurt but only the interests of corporations (who I still refuse to consider as 'people'). Strangely, corporations and their employees implicated in large financial crimes such as the recent recession seem to get away with a small slap and not much more.- The government / prosecutors seem intent on pursuing maximum penalties for even small crimes as a way of intimidating / weakening their opponent. Whilst this might be 'legitimate' it is legal bullying disproportionate to the crimes committed (and often they know this and are just playing the game to see what they can get).- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not. Either way if you lose (guilty or not) you are financially ruined for the rest of your life. If you have some money you will like lose it all, even if you win so it's a pyrrhic victory and makes this a great strategy for powerful entities like governments to destroy people they don't like. If you don't have a strong mentality (or as in this case already suffer from depression) then you are likely to be traumatised (maybe for the rest of your life) as career liars (sorry lawyers) destroy your character in court and regardless of whether it's true or not people (often thanks to the media) will still view you as suspect even if you are cleared just because you've been to court. Pretty well the only people who won't be affected are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, people with strong personalities / self belief and people who make a career out of the courts.

The problem is that most of the above apply whether you're guilty or innocent and going through the system can be as damaging regardless of the outcome. It doesn't seem fair or moral and sometimes you will get sad outcomes like this. I doubt all of the above could (should?) be fixed but it does seem that laws are too much written for the benefit of corporations when they should be about protecting individuals and wealth is too great a factor in the process which means it can never even approach fairness

It's been brought to light that the Secret Service was also involved. I'm willing to go on a limb here but there is so much more complexity to the happenings around this case than most will ever be aware of.

I am still furious that so many will so casually punt conclusions and make sweeping statements about Swartz, his condition and the circumstances that led to his death. It's been said that he was a rather empathetic person. In the kind of society we live in, empathy could well be a liability.

If you can't easily put a money value on it then most traits (obviously here I'm thinking of ones I consider positive) are not valued. I really wish that we would value the many other things which make life worth it and reward those more - but hey I guess I'm just a stupid idealist

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

There are several issues I think:- The law seems to allow for extremely long / large punishments for 'white collar' crimes which mainly pertain to the violation of legal concepts such as patents / copyrights where often people are not directly hurt but only the interests of corporations (who I still refuse to consider as 'people'). Strangely, corporations and their employees implicated in large financial crimes such as the recent recession seem to get away with a small slap and not much more.

I like how, in the same paragraph, you proclaim corporations aren't people (and presumably have no constitutional rights) then complain that they aren't prosecuted severely enough. Corporate personhood is a two-way street — they have some of the same rights as individuals, and they can be criminally charged like individuals.http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141663195 ... personhood

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- The government / prosecutors seem intent on pursuing maximum penalties for even small crimes as a way of intimidating / weakening their opponent. Whilst this might be 'legitimate' it is legal bullying disproportionate to the crimes committed (and often they know this and are just playing the game to see what they can get).

It's called an adversarial system for a reason. The prosecutor asks for harsh penalties, the defense asks for none, the jury decides the facts, and the judge decides a reasonable punishment for those found guilty.

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- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not. Either way if you lose (guilty or not) you are financially ruined for the rest of your life. If you have some money you will like lose it all, even if you win so it's a pyrrhic victory and makes this a great strategy for powerful entities like governments to destroy people they don't like. If you don't have a strong mentality (or as in this case already suffer from depression) then you are likely to be traumatised (maybe for the rest of your life) as career liars (sorry lawyers) destroy your character in court and regardless of whether it's true or not people (often thanks to the media) will still view you as suspect even if you are cleared just because you've been to court. Pretty well the only people who won't be affected are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, people with strong personalities / self belief and people who make a career out of the courts.

The dude cofounded Reddit and was somehow able to afford New York City rent without a day job. Let's skip the pauper charade — he had far more resources than most criminal defendants.

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The problem is that most of the above apply whether you're guilty or innocent and going through the system can be as damaging regardless of the outcome. It doesn't seem fair or moral and sometimes you will get sad outcomes like this. I doubt all of the above could (should?) be fixed but it does seem that laws are too much written for the benefit of corporations when they should be about protecting individuals and wealth is too great a factor in the process which means it can never even approach fairness

Can we also skip the irrelevant anti-corporatist rant? The only "corporations" involved are nonprofits MIT and JSTOR.

If you can't easily put a money value on it then most traits (obviously here I'm thinking of ones I consider positive) are not valued. I really wish that we would value the many other things which make life worth it and reward those more - but hey I guess I'm just a stupid idealist

I do too. I really do. It's tragic because we produce crude caricatures of the beings we really could be.

PS: I'm amused that my observations were worth anyone's effort to vote up/ down. Was it so terrible that I pointed out that MIT's web site seemed to be inaccesible? Or that this tragedy is sad? If you down voted my post does that mean you think Swartz's suicide is not sad? I don't understand some people.

Anyone else unable to reach http://www.mit.edu or follow the article links that go to mit.edu? Maybe it's just me but I can't help wonder if they are getting a DoS attack over this case.

This whole story is sad.

First off, it's web.mit.edu that's their main site, unless they convinced their computer club to give up the hostname since last I checked. Second, since my above comment, *some* MIT hosts are now reachable, but not still not others, like e-mail.

And while I agree that the situation with Swartz is sad and I empathize with his family and friends for what they feel due to his suicide, I have little empathy or understanding for anyone demonizing MIT. Which one might claim leaves me conflicted a bit as his family and friends also seem to be demonizing MIT, but I'd be a fool if I expected rational behavior from them after this tragedy. Those that didn't know him tho' have no such excuse.

- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not.

Innocent? All the evidence says he is guilty. He tried to do something MIT didn't want him to do, they kicked him off the network. He found a way around their attempt to stop him and did it anyway.

There is no "innocent until proven guilty", only the question of what should be done about it (personally, I think a slap on the wrist would be too harsh).

- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not.

Innocent? All the evidence says he is guilty. He tried to do something MIT didn't want him to do, they kicked him off the network. He found a way around their attempt to stop him and did it anyway.

There is no "innocent until proven guilty", only the question of what should be done about it (personally, I think a slap on the wrist would be too harsh).

If this was settled privately by mit or jstor then yea then there is no "innocent until proven guilty" but he was going to criminal court in usa. If you don't think that he should get a fair trial in criminal court, I hope some day you cross paths with a racist cop on his bad day.

When someone not associated with your school manages to eat up all your school's bandwidth - there are options on how to only allow students and faculty to use that resource. When a handful of teachers used Pandora and ate up all our internet bandwidth, Pandora was blocked. If it had been an internet application that was essential to education, we would have looked at options to throttle bandwidth usage to that one site. Why isn't there a max bandwidth per user to the JSTOR site at MIT? (And why did Mr. Swartz not take into consideration that his scraping would make JSTOR unusable for students/faculty and slow down the scraping to a level that they wouldn't notice?)

Other accounts state that it was MIT's refusal to drop charges that allowed the Feds to proceed. I believe MIT holds some responsibility for his death.

As sad and unfortunate as the entire situation is, the only person responsible for Aaron's death is Aaron. While I would have sided with Aaron as a juror in his trial as I am sure many others here would have, all his suicide has done is make a darker stain on this entire story. While I cannot comment on his mental state, I am sure he realized he could have made many more contributions to the cause alive and fighting even under appeal than as a suicide victim.

MIT is a special place, as its president is well aware. No easier way to destroy the no holds barred way of thinking than to have one of the members of its extended community die because of it.

As for the many comments trying to come up with some 'equation' of responsibility, that is just incredibly short sighted. Thinking of life as some sort of zero sum game is a sure fire way of killing innovation.

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

There are several issues I think:- The law seems to allow for extremely long / large punishments for 'white collar' crimes which mainly pertain to the violation of legal concepts such as patents / copyrights where often people are not directly hurt but only the interests of corporations (who I still refuse to consider as 'people'). Strangely, corporations and their employees implicated in large financial crimes such as the recent recession seem to get away with a small slap and not much more.- The government / prosecutors seem intent on pursuing maximum penalties for even small crimes as a way of intimidating / weakening their opponent. Whilst this might be 'legitimate' it is legal bullying disproportionate to the crimes committed (and often they know this and are just playing the game to see what they can get).- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not. Either way if you lose (guilty or not) you are financially ruined for the rest of your life. If you have some money you will like lose it all, even if you win so it's a pyrrhic victory and makes this a great strategy for powerful entities like governments to destroy people they don't like. If you don't have a strong mentality (or as in this case already suffer from depression) then you are likely to be traumatised (maybe for the rest of your life) as career liars (sorry lawyers) destroy your character in court and regardless of whether it's true or not people (often thanks to the media) will still view you as suspect even if you are cleared just because you've been to court. Pretty well the only people who won't be affected are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, people with strong personalities / self belief and people who make a career out of the courts.

The problem is that most of the above apply whether you're guilty or innocent and going through the system can be as damaging regardless of the outcome. It doesn't seem fair or moral and sometimes you will get sad outcomes like this. I doubt all of the above could (should?) be fixed but it does seem that laws are too much written for the benefit of corporations when they should be about protecting individuals and wealth is too great a factor in the process which means it can never even approach fairness

These are the hallmarks of the justice system within an oligarchy. Actions which threaten the power base of the ruling elite (in this case wealth represented by IP) become the most rigorously prosecuted while the protections and rights of the general populace are gradually eroded to the point of ineffectuality.

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

There are several issues I think:- The law seems to allow for extremely long / large punishments for 'white collar' crimes which mainly pertain to the violation of legal concepts such as patents / copyrights where often people are not directly hurt but only the interests of corporations (who I still refuse to consider as 'people'). Strangely, corporations and their employees implicated in large financial crimes such as the recent recession seem to get away with a small slap and not much more.

I'm not sure this is relevant, the charges in question were for unauthorized access (physical and computer), not related to copyright or patents. Last I checked, recession wasn't against the law, and neither were a lot of the things that lead to the recession; yes there were abuses in sub prime lending and later in foreclosure processes; but a large amount of the collapse was due to financial intuitions making contracts that they later couldn't keep; breaking a contract is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

lordmedikit wrote:

- The government / prosecutors seem intent on pursuing maximum penalties for even small crimes as a way of intimidating / weakening their opponent. Whilst this might be 'legitimate' it is legal bullying disproportionate to the crimes committed (and often they know this and are just playing the game to see what they can get).

The alternative is to start with the small stuff and add the big things later, which I think is much worse; better to defend knowing all the claims made against you.

lordmedikit wrote:

- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and completely screwed if not. Either way if you lose (guilty or not) you are financially ruined for the rest of your life. If you have some money you will like lose it all, even if you win so it's a pyrrhic victory and makes this a great strategy for powerful entities like governments to destroy people they don't like. If you don't have a strong mentality (or as in this case already suffer from depression) then you are likely to be traumatised (maybe for the rest of your life) as career liars (sorry lawyers) destroy your character in court and regardless of whether it's true or not people (often thanks to the media) will still view you as suspect even if you are cleared just because you've been to court. Pretty well the only people who won't be affected are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, people with strong personalities / self belief and people who make a career out of the courts.

The problem is that most of the above apply whether you're guilty or innocent and going through the system can be as damaging regardless of the outcome. It doesn't seem fair or moral and sometimes you will get sad outcomes like this. I doubt all of the above could (should?) be fixed but it does seem that laws are too much written for the benefit of corporations when they should be about protecting individuals and wealth is too great a factor in the process which means it can never even approach fairness

Innocent until proven guilty is unfortunately not binding on the court of public opinion. However, the prosecution has to establish probable cause before getting an indictment, which typically requires some evidence. In this case, I think there is clear evidence that laws were likely broken, regardless of how you feel about those laws or what the victims could (or should) have done to prevent the unauthorized access. While awaiting trial, the defendant was released on bond with minimal restrictions. In this case, I believe the defendant had ample opportunity to stop his actions which were clearly unwanted, and had experience with the court system before so he knew or should have known what he was getting himself into.

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

- The government / prosecutors seem intent on pursuing maximum penalties for even small crimes as a way of intimidating / weakening their opponent. Whilst this might be 'legitimate' it is legal bullying disproportionate to the crimes committed (and often they know this and are just playing the game to see what they can get).

The prosecutor can ask what they ask for, what they can get is what they can proof beyond reasonable doubt to a jury of the defendant's peers.

The impression I get from this suicide is that the prosecutor is either very good at bluffing, or maybe even people as deluded as Swartz finally realized that the evidence is not on his side.

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- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and

And I don't see anything wrong with it. I had served as juror in two different criminal trials. The public defender was the superior lawyer compare to the private defense attorney. I won't generalized my own experience. But I can confidently say that if I am ever charged, I am comfortable with being defended by that particular public defender.

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completely screwed if not. Either way if you lose (guilty or not) you are financially ruined for the rest of your life. If you have some money you will like lose it all, even if you win so it's a pyrrhic victory and makes this a great strategy for powerful entities like governments to destroy people they don't like.

That's just democracy, every time I talk to people about how government should reimburse defendant's legal cost, the first word came up is always "But O.J. Simpson .."

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Pretty well the only people who won't be affected are sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists, people with strong personalities / self belief and people who make a career out of the courts.

Funny, from every descriptions of him lack of "self belief" or "strong personalities" wasn't his problem. Some humility on his part probably could had averted this sad ending.

Here's a perspective from someone who has some idea what he's talking about -- as in he was to be an expert witness in Aaron Swartz's trial (and this was even linked to in one of Ars Technica's other articles on the topic (Family blames US attorneys for death of Aaron Swartz http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013 ... on-swartz/).

this was a "small potatoes" infraction, performed without malice or ill intent, prosecuted like the guy was a hardened violent criminal, ponzi-scheme investor, or terrorist, who had inflicted great damage and loss. The case appears to have had less to do with Aaron Swartz's co-called "computer crime" than with a few prosecutorial legal and/or political careers. In a sane world he'd have quickly gotten 6-momths community service (or supervised probation, as he was actively engaged in community work already) not been seriously threatened with 30-50 years in federal prison.

The real culprit is the U.S. 'Justice' System (and I have to say that our U.K. one shares many of these flaws).

There are several issues I think:- The law seems to allow for extremely long / large punishments for 'white collar' crimes which mainly pertain to the violation of legal concepts such as patents / copyrights where often people are not directly hurt but only the interests of corporations (who I still refuse to consider as 'people')....

Select Commentary Abbreviated or Omitted For Space Considerations.

.... but it does seem that laws are too much written for the benefit of corporations when they should be about protecting individuals and wealth is too great a factor in the process which means it can never even approach fairness

Complements on your summation of certain ills & ramifications risen from incestuous bonds between a political class (drooling & queuing to be patronized & impregnated) and sociopathic Neo-Liberal puppet-masters.

And of course you're correct in your insistence that corporations are not people. Corporate Person-hood is a fallacious concept bestowed legal standing by a SCOTUS majority that was appointed, & presided over, & propped up by these same puppeteers.

There are, indeed, men & women pressing in service to ideals, principles & an honest commonweal. These public officials are due grateful recognition for their efforts & accomplishments.

In the shadow of such integrity, though, can be seen others illuminated by the sickly pallor of self-aggrandizement. And in such contrast this cadre are seen even more clearly for that which they are; profoundly pathetic apostates to the principles of a populist representative democracy.

This pernicious presence by itself is revolting. Revulsion is made sickening & tragic by the fact that no small percentage of the American electorate are content to accept & promote such a destructive fiction.

Can we also skip the irrelevant anti-corporatist rant? The only "corporations" involved are nonprofits MIT and JSTOR.

Ya think that do ya? You're probably right, because I was reading, uh...somewheres on the internet .... that them corporations had nuthin' to do with SOPA or PIPA or none of that stuff neither.

While I am not given over to conspiracy theories, I'm well read enough to know that there is not a single piece of federal legislation free from active & robust lobbying efforts*, and that that there are many, many federal prosecutions of people** that are actively & robustly promoted & lobbied for by corporations.

I'm not "Anti-Corporate" in any sense, if I must resort to reductionist language. I am "Anti-Opacity" & "Pro-Accountability" & "Pro-Transparency" when it comes to things like constitutionally enshrined "Rights". Little things like equality under the law. You must admit, equality type stuff really would be a good idea & maybe even a remote possibility if more than 4 "Real People Justices" on SCOTUS would pay any attention to it.

All the drooling sarcasm you care to infer will be readily admitted to.

When someone not associated with your school manages to eat up all your school's bandwidth - there are options on how to only allow students and faculty to use that resource. When a handful of teachers used Pandora and ate up all our internet bandwidth, Pandora was blocked. If it had been an internet application that was essential to education, we would have looked at options to throttle bandwidth usage to that one site. Why isn't there a max bandwidth per user to the JSTOR site at MIT? (And why did Mr. Swartz not take into consideration that his scraping would make JSTOR unusable for students/faculty and slow down the scraping to a level that they wouldn't notice?)

Q: And hey, while we're at it, why not wish for investment in infrastructure to improve upon all metrics of network access for those of us who pay for service monthly, & who subsidize(d) network build out as taxpayers? That & a pony.

A:Because we don't own networks, the profits from which we can siphon off before tax to use for buying votes, thereby ensuring we needn't be concerned about those "Free Markets" we all love so much (as long as they are enforced on everyone else).

- Allegedly our justice systems run on an 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. However, this is only true if you have vast financial resources and a strong mentality to go through a court process designed to break you. If you don't have financial resources, you're stuck with public defenders if you're lucky and

And I don't see anything wrong with it. I had served as juror in two different criminal trials. The public defender was the superior lawyer compare to the private defense attorney. I won't generalized my own experience. But I can confidently say that if I am ever charged, I am comfortable with being defended by that particular public defender.

At least in S.Korea, public defenders are usually very good. It's usually because the position is seen as one of the fastest way to be recognized and be selected as a judge. However, it's not uncommon (pretty damned often I hear) for them to be swamped with multiple cases and not give each case attention it really needs.

Of course, I'm unfamiliar with how US selects its judges so it may be different.

First off, it's web.mit.edu that's their main site, unless they convinced their computer club to give up the hostname since last I checked. Second, since my above comment, *some* MIT hosts are now reachable, but not still not others, like e-mail.

And while I agree that the situation with Swartz is sad and I empathize with his family and friends for what they feel due to his suicide, I have little empathy or understanding for anyone demonizing MIT. Which one might claim leaves me conflicted a bit as his family and friends also seem to be demonizing MIT, but I'd be a fool if I expected rational behavior from them after this tragedy. Those that didn't know him tho' have no such excuse.

FWIW http://www.mit.edu and web.mit.edu show the same page; not sure what you mean about the compter club but I'm not an MIT insider. And it was an Anonymous hack.

Part of the "sad" is people feel the need to do crap like this - odd way to show respect for Mr. Swartz.